A Catechism Defending the Crusades and other Aspects of the Medieval World Part II

Please read the first part of this article before proceeding.

Objection 2: Crusaders killed Jews
 Response: This one is true, and sadly unfortunate. If anyone should be apologized to about The Crusades, it should only be the Jew. Even then, the popes often excommunicated knights for this anti-Semitic behavior. Last, some Christians were not anti-semetic. Saint Bernard believed God alone had the right to judge the Jews.
 Further Sources The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages by Edward Synan.
 Objection 3: The Crusades were power hungre movements to rule the earth under the authority of the Catholic Church.
 Response: This objection is based on reading men's hearts, which we cannot do. By this reasoning of judging men's hearts, we could thus be against the Protestant Reformation simply by claiming that Martin Luther was just jealous of not being promoted in the Catholic Church and that's why he reacted as he did. As crazy as this accusation of Luther maybe, some Catholics have taught it in their own writings. Likewise, it is just as absurd to oppose the Crusades out of some great conspiracy with zero evidence.
Objection 4: The Crusaders killed other Christians
Response: Again, this fact too is unfortunate, though historical context sheds more light. In the Fourth Crusade, it is indeed unfortunate that many crusaders raped, pillaged, and killed the Greek Christians in Constantinople. Pope Innocent III was against this movement however, and while the actions of the Fourth Crusade were wrong, the Greek Christians had slaughtered thousands of Latin Christians in 1183, long before the Fourth Crusade. Finally, the pope felt God's sovereignty allowed Constantinople to be destroyed so that the faith of the Latin Church would succeed over that of the Greeks.
 Sources: Pope Innocent III and the Greek Church by Richard James Clearly
 Objection 5: The Crusaders should have tried evangelizing the Muslims instead
 Response: Actually, this attempt was made. Saint Francis of Assisi is an example of one that went to, and preached the gospel, to the Muslims. The Muslim king had said that if more Christians were like Saint Francis, he would have become a Christian. Though Francis was willing to be martyred by the Muslims for preaching the gospel, he actually supported the crusades.
 Sources: The Crusades by Thomas Asbridge, Positively Medieval: The Surprising Dynamic Church of the Middle Ages by Jamie Blosser, Saint Francis of Assisi and the Conversion of the Muslims by Frank W. Rega. 
 Objection 6: Medieval Christians were ignorant of what Muslims believed.
 Response: This one is just a liberal lie. Peter the Venerable and Saint Thomas Aquinas were quite familiar with the teachings of Islam, and wrote writings against it. John of Damscus was an arab Christian that was quite familiar with Islam.
 Sources: On Reasons for our Faith against the Muslims, Greeks, and Armenians by Thomas Aquinas and translated by Father Peter Damian Fehlner, The Fathers of the Church: Medieval Continuation: Peter the Venerable: Writings Against the Saracens. 
 Objection 7: Christians should not have invoked the name of Christ in fighting a war against the Muslims.
 Response: Actually, it was the Muslims that had come together for a holy war from the start. All the eastern lands were once Christian before the rise of Islam. Thousands of Coptic Christians were killed or forced into Islam during the early Middle Ages. When Pope Urban II called for the first crusade at Clermont France, in July of 1095, he was acknowledging the Holy War that was already at place. The pope urged the Latin Christians to defend their Greek Christian brothers in the east, as well as to retake the holy places back from the infidels.
 Objection 8: Jerusalem was not the right of Christians to Control
 Response: Augustine's City of God served as the principle basis besides the Bible, for the Latin Christian worldview. Christians largely of both Catholic and Protestant churches largely supported The Crusades. Along with this, many Catholics and Protestants also historically believed in Christian government, and state sponsored churches. Many today wrongly assume that separation of church is just at odds with the historical Roman Catholic teachings. Actually, separation of church and state was at odds with many of the first Protestants. Likewise, many Roman Catholics and Protestants looked back upon the Crusades as a heroic attempt to drive out the infidel. Many would be surprised to learn that even in Colonial America, some states still had sponsored churches of their own. Gradually, the Enlightenment rather than the Protestant Reformation, was what led more to the concept of Separation and Church and State as we think it today. Christians that believe Separation of Church and State owe much to Thomas Jefferson and John Locke. Though many Protestants did believe in Separation of Church and State during the Reformation era, it was held differently than it would be conceived later on.
 All of that said, Jerusalem was in the hands of Christians when the Roman Empire was Christian. Further, Christendom saw itself as the successor to the role of the Hebrews in the Old Testament in a view called Supersessionism. With the view that Christians are now the people of God and unbelieving Jews in Christ are not, this was foundation to the Medieval worldview in general. Medieval man came largely from the theocratic worldview. To them, to not institutionalize the authority over the church over all things, was a sin all it's own. Though later Protestants went against the papacy and hierarchy of the Catholic Church, Protestants frequently supported the king recognizing their own religion as the state church. Further, many Protestants supported the killings of Catholics as much as Catholics supported that of Protestants. Why is all of this significant? Because, the Medieval Worldview did not hold the concept of Separation of Church and State as the Deist thinkers of the Enlightenment would later conceive it. 
On a final note to this objection, these reasons alone were not the basis for the Crusaders recapturing Jerusalem from the Saracens in 1099. The first Muslims, or Arabs as they were known centuries earlier, had actually let Christian Pilgrims peacefully journey and visit the holy places even after the conquest made by the Muslims. But in the Twelfth Century, this all changed. The Seljuk Turks overtook the Arab Muslims in the 1100s, and were much more violent and oppressive on the Christians than their predecessors had been.
 Sources: The Usborn Time Traveller Book of Knights and Castles by Judy Hindley, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism by John Zmirak, City of God by Saint Augustine of Hippo, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers by Brion McClanahan.